Contract cultivation of rice is found throughout Japan. The percentage of contract cultivation of rice in Niigata Prefecture is higher than that of the rest of the nation, and Ohgata-machi has one of the highest percentages of contract cultivation of rice in Niigata Prefecture.
This paper deals with the causes of contract cultivation of rice, the separation of settlements into caretaker-settlements and land-owner settlements, the roles of housewives of farm households in contract farming, and step-wise transition into contract farming, with reference to the relationship between the development of local labor market and the changes in agricultural organizations. Then, the writer investigates the character of caretaker-farms and their processes of enlargement of farm operation, and attempts to find the factors of development of contract farming of rice under the policy of “reducing acreage of rice production”.
Absorbing farm laborers into manufacturing plants is one of the causes of creating contract farming of rice. Therefore, contract farming will increase for decades to come. Contract farming, however, means breakdown of owner-operators who were given their lands after World War II and also is a formation of new type of agricultural management.

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The purpose of this paper is to state the development of the system of agricultural pro duction of the 1970's in the Saga Plain, one of the most famous rice producing districts in Kyushu. In order to consider it, Morotomi Machi, Mikatsuki Machi, Tosu Shi and Fuku domi Machi in Saga prefecture were selected as study regions.
In the Saga Plain, the system of group cultivation of rice was broken in about 1970. Then the system of agricultural production equipped with the farm-machinery and facili ties was formed by the introduction of various financial aid. And the system has owned distinctive characteristics of the region. In Mikatsuki and Tosu, a formation of the system of the land being placed under the management of the group or the agricultural coopera tive began with the urbanization. Put, generally, there exists the cooperative utilization system including part-time farmers as in the case of Morotomi, because the class differen tiation of farmers has not proceeded into a large scale and a small scale in the Saga Plain. On the other hand, in Fukudomi the system of the cooperative utilization of the farm machinery was broken because there was a relatively large number of full-time farmers.
The mechanization of agriculture in the cooperatives or individuals reduced, remarkably, . working hours of farmers in rice producing. In spite of the increase of part-time farmers, there was a limit of the enlargement of the management scale of full-time farmers in rice producing. Then, full-time farmers cultivate the rented land for a period of the secondd crop (that is chiefly wheat producing). Unders such conditions, methods of adaptation of part-time farmers are as follows; (1) The method of obtaining the high rent of land which is much higher than the standard price of tenancy on a contract of “Ukeoi Kosaku”, (2) The method of establishing the income of rice producing and the non-agricultural inLome), lending the land for a period of the second crop and contracting the cultivation in rice-planting season.
It can be said the establishment of the rice centers or the grain elevators ensured the security of living for part-time farmers. From the administrative point of view, it aimed at both making the basis of the structures of leading the farm management and expanding or rearranging the system of production in the form of unified settlments. But in fact there was a tendency of the separation of upper-class farmers from the cooperative production system, except for the case of Mikatsuki and Tosu. And the same thing happened to the system of the cooperative utilization of the farm-machinery.
It seems as if they always wanted to return the farm management from group cultivation to individual one.
We shall pay attention to the change in administrative system of production which unifies settlements, and consider whether it can acquire the leadership in the development of local agriculture.

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Originating from the backbone range of Northeast Japan, the middle course of the Agano River flows east to west and pours into the Sea of Japan near Niigata City. The studied area is characterized by N_??_S trending tectonic structures and covered with thick tCenozonic sediments. The area is geomorphologically divided into two regions; one is the region where the river cuts a deep valley or gorge and fluvial terraces are well developed along the course of the river, and the other is the Aizu Basin occupied with well developed floodplains (Fig. 1).
The river terraces are classified into eight levels along the middle course of the river. They are named as the Nishidaira, Shibasaki, Tokusawa, Nozawa, Numazawa, Mitsuai, and Yamato I and II terraces respectively. The floodplains in the western part of the Aizu Basin are classified into six levels and correlated with the Nozawa, Bange, Numa2awa, Mitsuai, Yamato terraces, and present floodplain (Fig. 2).
The Tadami River had directly flowed into the Aizu Basin during the middle Pleistocene time when the Palaeo-Aizu Basin had extended beyond the hills now separating the Aizu Basin from the Tadami River valley (Fig. 8-A). After the middle Pleistocene, central part of the active lineation in the western margin of the Aizu Basin have been formed. Uplifts along this active lineation have constructed the bordering hills locating between the present Tadami River valley and the Aizu Basin. The bordering hills were finally separated from the Paleo-Aizu Basin at the time when Nishidaira terrace was formed. Therefore, the present antecedent course of the Agano River also began to cut across the bordering hills as an entrenched meandering course (Fig. 8-B). The aggradational condition was recognized in the two regions during the formation of Nozawa. terrace (Fig. 8-C). The river deepened its floor by 10.20 meters in the gorge region, and. a few meters in the Aizu Basin during the period from the formation of Nozawa terrace (ca. 21, 000_??_22, 000 y. B. P.) to the flowing down of the Numazawa pumice flow deposits (Fig. 8-D). Thick pumice flow deposits originating from Numazawa Volcano buriedd the Tadami River valley and scattered at the southwestern part of the Aizu Basin about 5, 000 years ago. Therefore, a large propotion of Tokusawa, Nozawa, and Bange terraces were completely buried under the pumice flow deposits (Fig. 8-E). As the pumice flow deposits were rapidly cut down, Yamato terrace group was formed according to local. base levels of erosion.
The sediments of 150_??_200 meters in thickness have been accumlated in the central part: of the Aizu Basin after the deposition of Todera formation of early-middle Pleistcene inn age. On the other. hand, the middle course of the Agano River has cut down about. 100 140 meters during the same period, forming eight levels of fluvial terraces on the slopes of the river valley. The difference of these process is considered to be caused by crustal movements in both regions which have been divided by the active lineation in the western margin of the Aizu Basin.

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